Head study 10/15/10

Charcoal on bristol.

Head study 10/14/10

Charcoal on toned paper

Head study 10/14/10

Charcoal on toned paper.

Portrait of Paul, age four

Charcoal on smooth Strathmore bristol.

Head study 9/16/10

Charcoal on Canson toned paper.

Yeah, I know -- it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you... no, wait, that's an old song.

This isn't finished yet, but I thought it could go on the blog anyway. I'm still working on toned paper. I want to try a toned paper with less tooth. There's a youtube demo of a charcoal drawing on smooth paper toned with a watercolor wash, by artist Jonathan Linton. It's worth a few minutes to watch it. Very good drawing. Just search his name and go to his blog. He has a link to the video.

Head study - 8/12/10

This head study was done with charcoal pencils (General's; hard, medium, soft, and extra soft), and white chalk (General's white charcoal pencil, as well as CarbOthello 1400/700, which is a very light grey pastel pencil), on toned paper. I forgot to write a note on the paper, but I'm pretty sure it's Canson Mi-tientes; color is moonstone. Blending was done with paper stumps, soft dry paint brushes, and a paper towel. No fingers. I had to resist the impulse several times. But the tools work well, and don't leave oil on the drawing.

I shot sequence photos during the process, for those who are interested in such things. (Isn't everybody?)

It's a pretty nifty way to work, especially with portraits.

Block-in. This is the first stage, which I posted several days ago. An "eyeball" lay-in.

Measured and corrected. I used a measuring stick for comparative measurements, and adjusted the angle of tilt on her brow line, and correspondingly on the mouth.

Outline finished.

Shown here with reference photo. This is a photocopy of a photo from an old magazine. I blew it up to see it better. For this exercise, a large reference photo was more important than image quality. The subtle tones are lost, but enough of the image remains to work from. This is almost sight size, but not quite. I blocked it in without measuring, so it's close to the same size as the photo, but not exactly. I plan to do some sight size head studies, too. They are a good way to train your eye to see not only proportions, but also the big effect.

If you're not familiar with sight size drawing, a Google search will lead you to some good information. There's even a website about it --- sightsize.com.

Darks blocked in (and a few halftones).

Three fourths finished.

The finished drawing. This is a blurry photo. A clear photo is at the top of this post.

Three fourths finished

Charcoal and white chalk on toned paper.

Head starts

Pencil on sketch pad. From photos.

A few quick-sketch straight-line head gesture block-in starts

Graphite (mechanical pencil) on sketchpad. From photos.

Beginning block-in - 7/22/10

Charcoal on toned paper.

This is the first step in a head study. More later.